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iPod Mini Worldwide Rollout Delayed
falcon5768 writes "Apparently those 4-gig, $249 little buggers are selling faster than anyone expected.... So fast that the original April rollout worldwide has been delayed till July to keep up with the demand in the states and to get enough in production to meet worldwide sales. Given that there where 100,000 pre-orders alone, does this mean that yet again Apple hit on a niche that no one else (including me) thought would sell. I have been hearing a lot of rumors that the biggest buyer of the iPod mini has in fact been those female tech geeks out there. So much for the idea a $249 4-gig iPod was a mistake." Rob Glaser of RealNetworks, though, claims that not opening the iPod (big or small) to other formats is a real mistake; he wants to see iPod support other proprietary formats (like, say, Real's).
I bet Real doesn't like the idea of Apple not supporting their format.
That combined with their other losses these last couple of weeks, I just suspect the statement was made to make it sound like they are still a contender.
Ted
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
Like the original premise (that the iPod mini was a bad idea), the claim that Apple should support niche formats like OGG or Real is stupid. Apple has demonstrated time after time after time that they and they alone define the lead in technology that the rest of the industry follows. If Apple says AAC is where its at, then that's where it's at. Period. All the naysayers and open sores advocates can go buy something else, but like every other time, they will add up to maybe a couple of thousand people. Meanwhile the rest of us will go on enjoying state of the art portable music. Thanks again Apple!
Yes, I'm bitter about Real.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
Because females tend to be more conscious of design/looks. In general men tend to care more about specs (my iPod is bigger then yours). That is why so many ./ers were predicting that it would fail, because it is not meant for this crowd in general.
A lot of Slashdotter's should be getting used to the taste of crow right about now. Many people here predicted that teh iPod Mini would be a bust, that no one would buy a 4GB unit for $50.00 (US) less than a 15GB unit.
/. market.
And they were 100% dead wrong. Why? Because the iPod Mini isn't aimed at the tech-savy
The lesson here: Don't predict the market based solely on your preferences.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I'm not sure if it has anything to due with actually hitting a niche market or if it's just a way to be ultra-hip and spend $50 less. The vast majority of people that are buying these aren't techies, they are just average people that have very little product knowledge beyond knowing the iPod plays mp3s and that it's cool. If people shopped around, or if Apple's competitors did a better job of marketing I don't think it would sell nearly as well.
sig.
My wife says she wants an iPod, after seeing someone at her office with one. I ask which one she wants, and she sends me a damn link to the mini. I said for a bit more you could get the regular iPod with more storage...apparently this one will fit in her purse better or something. Maybe it's the ability to choose a color, but I thought you can get "skins" for your regular iPod already? In any case, chalk up another possible sale for the female geek market.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Dude, lots of people thought it was a good idea. True, the majority of people on Slashdot thought it was a bad idea, but Slashdot is hardly representative of everybody.
Way to spin the issue, though--it wasn't a sound business decision built from careful research and experience, it was Yet Another Example of (beleaguered) Apple somehow succeeding with a dubious product...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Because it's too hard to play games or watch movies while I'm walking through the city to a friend's house, or while I'm sitting at my desk doing some drafting. I like listening to music while I do those (and other) things, and I want something that does that very well, and doesn't have a big color screen to eat up battery life.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I've met and known many female geeks. The reason most don't know they are there is because a lot of male geeks LOOK like the stereotypical geek. Female geeks do not.
The 4GB iPod is not competing with the 15GB iPod. The 4GB iPod is meant as an alternative to the flash based MP3 players offered by everyone else. Take a look: 256MB Rio Chiba is $200, a 256MB Rio Cali is $200, 256MB Yepp is $200, 512MB Creative MuVo2 X-Trainer is $289. I could go on and on. Now $250 for a 4GB iPod looks pretty good right? To say nothing of the fact that it's an iPod and looks so damn cool compared to any of the flash players out there. People saying the Mini iPod is expensive don't understand Apple's strategy here. They want to compete with flash players with the mini, and HD players with the regular iPod.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
... and not as a smaller jukebox.
The miniature MP3 players, usually topping out at 256MB or 512MB due to the price of CF/SD cards, sell to a broader audience than the bigger jukeboxes. Even the bigger iPod is a bulky thing to carry around. The clones tend to be even bigger.
The one thing that Apple has gotten right over the years is ergonomics and human interface: the iPods -- like the iMac -- are small, easy to use (which prompts some to call them crippled), few options to confuse (do I need AFLAC? [no, that's that insurance with the duck] What's an Ogg?), and they're smooth: soothing on the eye, and easy on the fabric of the pocket, if not the wallet.
Design for Use, not Construction!
the initial, on-topic part: i never thought these things would sell to anybody for that price, but i guess it makes sense to me that women would adopt it first. i dont mean that to be sexist, but women tend to care more about aesthetics more, i think. also, i would guess women to care a little more about it being tiny. i mean, id be willing to lug around a bigger, uglier dell player if it was superior in the ways i deemed more important. i just dont see my wife thinking the same way. she would rather have the one that is prettier and smaller. (sure, sure, insert joke about that last sentence *here*)
now for the RvB quote:
"didnt i just tell you to stop makin up ficticous animals?"
later...
"so, unless anybody has any other names for it, we'll call it the warthog....chipathangy, how bout that? i like it...got a ring to it."
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
Sorry Real, but I don't see any need for the iPod to support yet another proprietary audio format. The iPod can deal with stanard AAC and MP3, and Apple's FairPlay AAC. Ogg Vorbis would be nice, as it is an open standard that anyone can implement royalty-free, but I can live with what I have right now. Real and Windows Media? I wouldn't have bought my iPod if I needed them.
The beauty (to me, the consumer) of FairPlay DRM is that every track bought from the iTunes Store comes with the same rights. I don't have to wonder what I can do with my purchases, or read any fine print. I like that. I doubt I'll ever buy off of another online store, because it's a problem I don't need... unless someone else starts selling FairPlay AAC files or standard un-mangled files.
What is it about Apple that they can generate such huge pre-orders of a gadget that costs $250 and *still* not make a profit?
I know you're a troll but... how many times since 1998 has Apple NOT reported a profit? They're one of the only tech companies that actually make money in this ruined economy.
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
You've never seen males buying cellphones, laptops or PDA's have you?
Yes I have, and I've never seen a woman with a 17" PowerBook.
I will be the first to admit that I was so freaking WRONG when I thought they would flop. I guess that is why I'm not a CEO.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
Because foremost, it is a very practical player in ways many others are not (and women are generally more practical than men and want features that are useful to them as opposed to just existing for possible future use for some remote scenario). Getting songs onto it is very fast, you can use it easily, and even the size while adding to "cuteness" is primarily a practically useful feature rather than just a gimmick or fashion statement.
That really is the key - the primary buyer of the iPod is not buying it for fashion (for what piece of electronics is really fashionable to the level of clothing or accessories) but instead for the practical features it offers to deliver portable music to the user as easily as possible. People keep scoffing at the possible sucess of the iPod because they misunderatand this very key point - as long as you continue to believe people buy an iPod for reasons of apperance you will also continue to be suprised at any sucess they attain in any form because you misunderstand the core of what makes them desireable.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"100,000 pre-orders alone [...] the biggest buyer of the iPod mini has in fact been those female tech geeks out there"
I totally deplore this statement... it reeks of macho sexism especially that the poster states that the price is a mistake... what are you saying about female tech geeks... you're implicitly, though obviously, suggesting they're idiots! idiots en masse... no wonder that this male geek crowd has a reputation of being unattractive to females, especially with such attitude!....
The ipod, and even more the ipod mini, is no longer a "GEEK" product... it's a mass market and mass popular culture product now... in fact, it probably never was a intended by apple as a geek product, considering their efforts to make it easy to use... Recently, a British tabloid had a feature about the falling dollar and how much cheaper it is now to shop from the US for UK consumers... they used 3 products as an example; the first was the levi's 501, which is the classic example that as far back as i can remember has always been used as the yardstick for sure features, the second product was apple's ipod!... like it or not, apple's ipod now has the mass recognition that levi's 501 has... not a geek product, it's a popular culture product!
I visited my sister a couple of weeks ago, coincidentally arriving on the day that her 13-year old daughter's (blue) iPod Mini arrived. She bought it herself, with her babysitting money. In that age group, there aren't "portable mp3 players", there are iPods. Period.